Writer Don Roos Makes The Leap From Hollywood To Indies with "The Opposite of Sex"

Writer Don Roos Makes The Leap From Hollywood To Indies with "The Opposite of Sex"

Writer Don Roos Makes The Leap From Hollywood To Indieswith "The Opposite of Sex"

by Anthony Kaufman

Don Roos has written four produced screenplays, beginning with “LoveField,” and then three others for the Hollywood beast, “Single WhiteFemale,” “Boys on the Side,” and “Diabolique” (the remake) — all ofwhich have leant him a certain amount of cache and steady work. ButRoos, like so many today, had the urge to direct, so he took the risk,refusing to give up his next project unless he was attached. The resultis the un-P.C. malevolent farce, “The Opposite of Sex,” starringChristina Ricci as a white trash seductress and the disruptivehalf-sister of a mild-mannered, mid-Western, homosexual teacher, playedby Martin Donovan.

Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film just before it was accepted topremiere at Sundance in January, and now it opens this Friday with thestrength of a complimentary Janet Maslin review, a stellar-name castincluding Ricci, Donovan, Lisa Kudrow and Lyle Lovett, and Roos’ssuccessful track-record of entertaining and audience-friendly stories.But don’t expect a “Boys on the Side” sequel; Roos flexes his creativemuscles in this directorial debut with a script that offends,manipulates, and taunts its audience in a brash and sardonic style.indieWIRE spoke with Roos recently on the night after a premiere benefitscreening of his film for the IFP. He discussed the toils and joys ofwriting-directing, the essentials of casting, and the influence of Diane Keaton.

indieWIRE: This is all new to you, isn’t it? As a writer, you’ve hadnothing to do with the press.

Don Roos: On my very first movie, they invited me once to a junket, but whogives a shit about the writer? You’re a writer. Who gives a shit aboutwriters? It’s so wrong, as far as I’m concerned, because a director isbasically like a conductor of somebody else’s work, of the actor’s work,of the cameraman’s work, of the writer’s work. Of course, there aredirectors who are originating, creative forces, but they usually have towrite their own scripts, like Woody Allen, or Scorsese doesn’t write hisown scripts, but I bet he does. Hitchcock wrote a lot of his. . .

iW: So how were you able to get this one as a director?

Roos: I wrote it in a way that. . . I took the risk. If they weren’tgoing to let me direct it, it wouldn’t get done. That’s what I had todo. I had to find people who were willing enough to take a chance onme. And I had known Michael Besman who was an executive on “SingleWhite Female,” so he was the first person in the business I showed thescript to, and he took it to Kirkpatrick who took it too Rysher, andRysher said “Yes,” if I could attract casting. So they had guaranteesall they time. They weren’t going to make the movie with me plus nobodyin the cast. They would make it with me if there were enough realpeople. So that’s how it happened. You have to gamble, you have towrite something and say, “This won’t get made unless I get to make it.”

[The film’s publicist Shannon Treusch enters with two Diet Pepsis.]

Roos: What are the specials today?

Shannon Treusch: We have Roast Duck and Pasta. . .

Roos: We’re not ready just yet. . .

[Treusch leaves.]

iW: So that’s a logical step into the casting process, then, because youhad to figure out how to get name talent.

Roos: I didn’t know really that it was all contingent on casting. Itwas never really spelled out, but that’s in fact, what it was about. Wejust kept trying to move forward with the project. Casting is. . . Ireally don’t like that part of the process. Because I live with anactor, because all my friends are actors. I know what goes behind memeeting with an actor, a director meeting with an actor. They get thesides. They call their coach to work on it, they wake up sick about it,they drive there and they sweat in the car and they have to leave enoughtime to dry out. So I know how much work goes into them just showing upand reading the scene. So, I was over-empathetic about that. That wastough. And of course, you see millions more people than you use. Socasting the smaller parts I found to be hard. Casting the leads, ifyou’re going for people that you know, most of the time you don’t read.You just like their work, you trust them, you’ve seen their body of workand that’s more fun. I think they don’t care as much in away. Theydon’t care whether they get the job or not, because if it’s not thisjob, it’s another job, so it takes a little more of my co-dependentpressure off.

iW: But then you’re going in blind as far as establishing some sort ofrelationship with them, aren’t you?

Roos: Oh yeah. You just have to meet them and you can tell whetherthey’re the type of person. It’s like going to a party. And who do youwant to talk to? You will find out very quickly. Directing is likethrowing a big party. Okay, we’re all here, and there’s a littletrouble there and I want that to go smoothly and having to introduceother actors to new actors, and new crew members. It’s like a bigparty, and you’re a very, very, overworked host. But it is your party,and everybody is there for you.

iW: It’s very much an ensemble cast. . .?

Roos: No stars, no star-treatment. I can’t remember ever losing mytemper during the entire production. No acting out, no bodyguards, nocrazy press.

iW: You shot 40 days. How were you able — or were your producers ableto get you a fairly good budget, a fairly good schedule?

Roos: They were really insistent that I have enough time because of myinexperience and I needed all that time. What I needed the time for wasI didn’t cut the script enough. And we shot a lot of scenes that didn’tget in the picture. Because we didn’t need them. God, I could haveused those days that we spent on shooting those scenes, could havecovered other scenes better, more angles, but you live and learn. Ineeded the time. So, we were able to finish on time and under budgetand that was good. That’s where all the money went. Certainly, thestars salaries were not exactly extremely generous. Which in a way, wasa good thing, because all the actors had to really want to do themovie. They were committed to the script.

iW: So tell me more then about directing the first time — surprises,challenges?

Roos: The biggest surprise was how much I liked it. I’d always thoughtit was this overwhelming job full of fear and pressure andresponsibility, which I think is all a bunch of hooey that directors putout, so that we don’t realize how fun their job is. What directorsdon’t tell you is that every single person there on the show is there tomake you look good. They don’t want the director to ever look bad. Sothere’s this enormous amount of help and as a writer, maybe actors gethelp, people taking care of them, but writer’s never have any help. Soit was like going from the desert to an oasis. Everybody running, “can Iget you this”, “can I make this scene better for you”, “can I change theset”, “can I change the costumes” — the actors saying, “can I do anythingmore or different, what don’t you like” — and it was just a greatexperience. As a writer, you do know what you want. You’ve already beenthrough the story, and the characters, and the dialogue. Everythingthat’s on the page is what you want. So a lot of times directing waslike getting a new pair of glasses. Does this look better or does thislook better? Do you want the red dress or the blue dress? Do you wanta wide angle or a tight angle? Choices. And a writer makes choices,that’s what a writer does. Of all the millions of words in the world,you choose the ones that tell you a story, you choose what thecharacters say, you choose how long the scene is. I think it was easy.I think it’s very easy to direct a picture competently, adequatelyenough. It’s easy enough to direct a picture where it’s not glaringlybad. It’s hard to do a fine picture.

iW: What about those scenes, where you discovered once they were shot orwhatever point you were in the process, that they weren’t right?

Roos: None of the stuff that we cut was wrong, in the sense, that themood or it was from a different movie, they were all good scenes. Whathappens is that actors come in and in a script you just have your wordsto make a point. Actors have their faces and their eyes, their voicesand their beings to make points, and so what happens is thatrelationships are clearer. . . The best surprise of all about directingis working with the actors.

iW: How do you think it would be directing inexperienced actors?

Roos: It’s harder, I think. We had some inexperienced actors. It’sharder, only because their confidence isn’t there; it’s not so muchtheir experience, but their confidence. It requires a lot more relaxingthem. . . Young actors or inexperienced actors are just more insecureand maybe don’t trust themselves as much. It’s about casting, you castthe right people, you hire the right people, and you hope that theyencourage them to do their job well, I mean, you’re screwed if youmiscast.

iW: That’s the old cliche, 90% is in the casting. . .

Roos: I felt that those were the decisions I made about the characterswhen I cast. Because then that’s that character and they come withthemselves and you use that character now and that’s who you bought.Some characters change. I remember when I was writing the script, theLucia character was much harder, and much angrier than Lisa [Kudrow]played her with a lot of heart. And she’s somebody I really cared aboutby the end of the movie. Scenes that were just sparring, spat scenes,became something very different, like the “vagina, vagina, vagina” scenewas just supposed to be a spat, and they both really good, and it’ssadder than that. So she deepened her role a lot. And Christina’s[Ricci] role in the script was very busy, and emotional and one of thosebull in a china shop roles and Christina’s take on it was much morethoughtful and deliberative and studious and pensive and watchful —which worked great, you pay more attention to a character that is beingstill. So she was very smart. Those are things that the actors bringyou as gifts that if it were up to me, it would have been a lesser film.

iW: I want to talk about her voice over, and some of the other filmicconventions you play with throughout the film — that obviously came inthe writing?

Roos: That was very much from the beginning. When we tell a story toanybody, we have a much more plastic sense of storytelling. We’re like,“Okay, wait a minute. . . I’ll tell you this later. . . I’ll tell youhis name in a minute or I shouldn’t have told you that now.” Peoplestill can be cut up by a story. I wanted a messier movie, a movie wherethe storytelling was more natural, more like, “Oh, you don’t need tohear this.” Or, of course, everything that I say that about, you doneed to hear. Just to have a fresher way of telling the story that wasmore confidential. I also wanted the audience not to be protected fromthe movie. It’s one thing to see a character come in and screw upeverybody else’s life, but if she’s just staying in the movie world,you’re protected from her. So I wanted that part of it to sometimesturn towards the audience and call them stupid, or say, “you’re notpaying attention” or “don’t relax” or whatever, so that we would feelcloser to the other characters that were suffering under her tutelage.I just think all that stuff is funny. I noticed it in Woody Allenmovies. The audience is very sophisticated. I remember this way back in“Annie Hall,” suddenly it’s cartoons and then were right back into it.We’re much more sophisticated, we go in and out of that all the time.And I like that. I like that feeling of a filmmaker saying I’m tellingyou a story and not being so formal and hands off about it.

iW: I continually think audiences are much smarter than most people givethem credit for. And stuff that doesn’t push that envelope just fallsflat. People want to see something that’s taking a little bit of arisk. And another risk in your film is having that protagonist who is…

Roos: Unlikeable. Right, absolutely. But Madame Bovary is a veryunlikeable character, very selfish and very cruel and unconcerned withthe consequences of her actions. And Dedee is a hell of a lot nicerthan Madame Bovary. She becomes somebody who does stop in her tracks atthe end of the movie and think, maybe, I’m wrong. We’ve gotten used toin movies the likeable heroine with the big hair, who’s kind of clumsyand endearing and . . .

iW: Was that Michelle Pfeiffer’s character from “Love Field”?

Roos: She was a little bit like that. Endearing, but she was alsoselfish in the pursuit of a goal. I’m thinking more of one of myfavorite actresses Diane Keaton, who can’t enter a room without droppinga bag of groceries and spilling the bottle of ink on her. That kind ofcharacter was so imprinted on me by “Annie Hall” and her subsequentmovies that I think we lapse into that often in American pictures, theMeg Ryan, Julia Roberts, just game kind of gal. And I think women aremore complicated than that. And people are more complicated than that.And we can tolerate. So you don’t like her for every minute of theframe, so what? You’re not leaving. You paid your money, you have tostay. I think the audience can have more a relationship to a characterthan shear unadulterated star-love. We’ll see, we’ll see. . .